Using RAID in Linux

The Mysteries of RAID

August 1, 2002

When you look at some of the installation documents for any of
popular Linux distributions, you will see only few mentions of the
term RAID, typically with passages such as "you will need RAID only if
you are a very professional systems administrator and you already know what are you doing."

Even in the latest documentation of the latest Linux releases, this is
likely the only thing you will see about RAID. This is one big reason
why I think we should move past this barrier and demonstrate that RAID
can be used by "normal" people.

RAID stands for "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks." This seems to be rather
self-explantory, except for that strange word "inexpensive." In
reality, it's usually just refers to common PC hard disks, either SCSI
and IDE.

But some additional explanation is necesary, however. Array simply means multiple units. It is perhaps the most significant
term in the acronym--for owners of just one, even huge, hard drive, RAID is absolutely
useless. Also, the word "redundant" is not an entirely descriptive
label. As you'll see, it is
not as easy as that.